Friday, 28 November 2014

As I
am coming to the end of my ten week internship at LHSA, working on the
photograph collection, I have come across a selection of photographs from the
Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) that led me to do some further investigation.
The following set of photographs show patients from the REH carrying out
activities in occupational therapy (OT). OT, in principal, endeavours to
improve mental and physical health by providing practical support and
activities, for individuals suffering from a wide range of conditions. OT helps
individuals apply themselves in practical activities, from day-to-day tasks,
such as preparing meals, to work and leisure.This helps to bring purpose to people’s lives and helps them to live as
independently as possible, which plays a key role in rehabilitation and helping
the recovery of many health related conditions. Improving general outlook and
well-being are also key concepts of the role of occupational therapy.[1]

﻿

A garden created by the patients at MacKinnon House over the past few years and now maintained by them, P/PL7/P/068

Keep fit class, P/P7/P/066

Whilst
the roots of the development could be arguably traced back to China in 2600 BC,
when Cong Fu was taught as “medical
gymnastics” where physical training was believed to promote health[2];
I decided to try and track the developments at a more local level. It was not
until around the eighteenth century that new approaches were beginning to take
shape in the treatment of psychiatric patients by founding fathers, such as
French physician Philippe Pinel, in moral treatment. This was a more humane
approach to treatment of the mentally ill that preferred the use of practical
therapy over incarceration or punishment. In his book published in 1801 Pinel
prescribes, “physical exercises and manual occupations” for mental illness
because “rigours executed manual labour is the best method of securing good
morale discipline. The return of convalescent patients to their previous
interests, to the practice of their profession, to industriousness and
perseverance have always been for me the best omen of finial recovery”.[3]Whilst OT was also evolving in the treatment
of physical conditions, it was this relationship between OT and the treatment
of mental illness, where some pioneering work was demonstrated in Edinburgh
hospitals.

An important recent development is the introduction of industry into the hospital through the co-operation of outside firms, P/PL7/P/065

A cooking lesson, P/PL7/P/067

Dr
D.K. Henderson (1884 – 1965) was a Scottish born physician. He was a Physician
Superintendent of the REH and a Professor of Psychiatry, through the hospital’s
links with the University of Edinburgh.The pictures from this collection would have been taken at a much later
date, from Dr Henderson’s time at REH but they demonstrate some of his founding
work there. A balance of farming, gardening work, as well as domestic and craft
activities tailored to the patient’s condition, are examples of OT that he
believed could, “increase a person’s self-esteem [due to the] ability to
accomplish something”.[4]
These sorts of activities could also create structure and organisation to a patient’s
day, creating a balance between work, rest and play. Henderson believed this
ultimately helped individuals adapt and removed feelings of hopelessness. By
1932 he had encouraged the founding of the Scottish Association of Occupational
Therapy.

Instruction in typing P/PL7/P/061

A corner of the farm, P/PL7/P/062

For
individuals suffering from more physically debilitating conditions, OT was also
being encouraged as a form of treatment. Casualties resulting from the First World War saw many men facing adapting
back into civilian life with debilitating injuries and a lack of employment
support.Curative workshops were opened within military hospitals,
based on similar workshops already established in the United States, and were
equipped with tools and machinery to exercise joints and muscles. Application
in work based tasks could, therefore, help in physical healing and
strengthening help but also in rehabilitating into society with permanent
disabilities. Based on these workshops the first occupational therapy
department in Scotland was opened in 1936 at the Astley Ainslie Institution in
Edinburgh. The Astley Ainslie grew from being a convalescent hospital to
become a leading rehabilitation centre and school for training occupational
therapists.

An important recent development is the introduction of industry into the hospital through the co-operation of outside firms, P/PL7/P/064

Brush up your baking, P/PL7/P/063

From these early days of establishing the role that OT could
play in improving health and wellbeing, we can see that as the profession has
grown, it is still very relevant in society today.

Friday, 21 November 2014

This week's blog is from Liz, our Project Cataloguing Archivist on our Wellcome Trust -unded case note cataloguing project.A letter I came across this week, while continuing with my
cataloguing of Norman Dott’s neurosurgical case notes, led me to looking into a
ground-breaking (and somewhat controversial)
BBC television series, ‘Your Life in Their Hands’. The letter was from a former
patient of Dott’s who had been successfully treated by him and his team in the
Department of Surgical Neurology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1954. She opens
her letter by referring to his appearance on the BBC series broadcast on 11
March 1958. Dott’s reply is also contained in the case note, ‘How kind it was
for you to write on the occasion of our Departmental Broadcast. It was quite
interesting to consider what would interest people and the split-second
technical side of it was quite an experience’.

The series featured ten
programmes each looking at a different medical condition and how it was
treated. Each of the programmes came from different hospitals around Great
Britain, and in Dott’s case the focus was the treatment of head injuries in the
Department of Surgical Neurology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and
Bangour Brain Injuries Unit. Other episodes featured the treatment of
conditions including respiratory paralysis following poliomyelitis,
tuberculosis, rheumatic fever and mitral stenosis. The broadcasts were
presented by Dr Charles Fletcher and aimed to provide clear information to the
public about medical conditions and the modern techniques being used to treat
them. What made the programmes so notable was the inclusion of footage of surgical
operations taking place.

BBC filming of an operation at the Western General Hospital, GD28/8/2/10

The episode featuring Dott was entitled ‘Thought is the Seed
of Action – a look at neurosurgery from the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh’. Fortunately we have a copy of the transcript
for the programme in our collections, as well as a VHS recording (which I look
forward to watching at a later date). The broadcast opens with Dr Fletcher
introducing the subject and then handing over to Professor Dott who describes
the Royal Infirmary as a general hospital that ‘deals with all the ills that
flesh is heir to’ and he makes sure to credit all the staff at the Hospital
with the valuable work done there, ‘Nor would our work be at all possible
without our nurses and our large background staff’. Several members of the
Surgical Neurology team also feature in the broadcast including Dr F J
Gillingham, Dr Kate Herman, and Mr Philip Harris, with Mr Harris describing the
brain as a ‘complex organ’ which can be compared to ‘the BBC and a vast
telephone exchange. Messages are constantly coming into it – and are being
received, interpreted, recorded as memories and messages are constantly being
sent out to other parts of the body’. The programme looked at how patients were
assessed, treated and their rehabilitation, with a focus on the treatment of a
young man who sustained a head injury while playing football. As a result of
his injury he developed a blood clot which is shown being operated on by Dott
and his team. The programme signs off with a warning to motorcyclists about the
importance of wearing crash helmets. The inclusion of Dott’s Department in the
series was testament to the important work they were carrying out.

﻿

Transcript of 'Your Life in Their Hands'

﻿

‘Your Life in Their Hands’ was met with a mixed response, on
the whole well received by the public and press, with the exception of the British
Medical Journal, who were opposed to the series and who published several
articles about it in 1958. They believed the series would heighten public fears
of illness and increase hypochondriasis. The discussion even made it into the
House of Commons with a question being raised on 26 February 1958 about the potential
ill effect the programmes may have on the public. Despite the initial unease felt
at the candid and graphic depictions of
medical treatment in 1958, ‘Your Life in Their Hands’ was a huge success with further
series being made over the last 50 years and the presence of medical
documentaries on television becoming commonplace now.

Friday, 14 November 2014

Today, we’re coming to the end of Explore Your Archive week,
an initiative from the Archives and Records Association that aims to raise the
profile of archives and their role in our everyday lives. Archives can risk
being seen as dusty and irrelevant, telling us about the past but with little
relevance to how we live our lives now. In Explore Your Archive week, we need
to say very much the opposite – archives not only preserve our memories, but
also act as vital evidence for the present and future to ensure that our society is
run openly and fairly.

Climbing off my soapbox for a minute, we have been having
some serious fun in Explore Your Archive week! We’ve been taking part on
Twitter, joining together with archivists from across the United Kingdom and
Ireland (and also worldwide!) who have been tweeting on a different theme every
day.

Monday was an insight into a #DayInTheLife of archivists, peeking into what
archivists get up to all day in the office and amongst the stacks in the
stores. From work in the search-room to cataloguing to taking part in talks and
lectures, a great variety of activity was on show. It had been an enquiries day
for me, seeking out images like this one...

At work in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital hen house, April 1959 (P/PL7/P/038)

...as well as researching people’s ancestors though our asylum
records. The case books of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital are not our largest
collection, but they are certainly the most popular with researchers.On Tuesday, First World War archives were the focus
(#ww1archives). This year, we’re getting alot of enquiries about the period for obvious reasons. Although we can’t
help people with soldiers’ medical records, we have a wealth of sources giving
a glimpse into everyday life in Edinburgh’s hospitals during the war, including
nurses’ scrapbooks like this one from Bangour Village Hospital (taken over by
the War Office in 1915):

Scrapbook from a Bangour nurse, c. 1917 (Acc13/044)

Wednesday saw a chance for Twitter followers to #askarchivists.
Although I didn’t take any questions myself, queries ranged from oldest
archives to guides to academic and genealogical research. And don’t worry if
you didn’t get your question in on the day, because as one participant said: “Archivists
don't just answer questions one day a year! We do it all day, every day!”

We took an #archiveselfie on Thursday – here are our
wonderful CRC conservators, posing with their favourite equipment:

Our CRC conservators, left to right: Emma, Ruth, Anna and Emily.

My own favourite 'selfie story' was that of Edith Halvarsson, who’s
been with us from the Information Management and Preservation MSc at the
University of Glasgow. In two weeks, she’s very much explored archives and
taken the papers of the Medical Women’s Federation from this:

Medical Women's Federation papers before cataloguing

To this:

Edith with a beautifully ordered trolley!

As the ‘mad
cat lady’ of the office, I’m ready to post pictures of our #archiveanimals today (cats
and dogs, for example, can often be found in both informal and formal images of
hospital staff). Here’s one with First World War soldiers recuperating with the help of some feline friends at
Edenhall Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers:

First World War image from a photograph album from Edenhall Hospital, c. 1917 (Acc12/054)

The Explore Your Archive initiative doesn’t end today for LHSA. Worth a mention is our participation in
the Previously… festival over the next couple of weeks. The Previously... festival
celebrates Scotland’s history with events all over the country. On Saturday 15
November, we’ll be at the Family History Day in Edinburgh Central Library on
George IV Bridge (and tweeting, with the hashtag #explorearchives). From 10:30am
until 4pm, you can come along and ask Ruth and Louise everything you’ve ever
wanted to know about finding family history in hospital records.

On Tuesday 18th November here at the Centre for
Research Collections, Louise is going to be talking about how to use our
records in genealogy, with a chance to get up close and personal with some of
our nineteenth century patient records: http://www.historyfest.co.uk/2014-events/november-18

Friday, 7 November 2014

I am currently the LHSA intern and I am at
the halfway point of my main task of cataloguing the vast and varied
photographic collection.As a (very) newly
qualified archivist, this has been such a great opportunity for me to work full-time and engage with the skills that I have developed over the last
year.As I volunteered with LHSA
throughout gaining my qualification, I have equally enjoyed becoming part of the
team, including the glorious views of Edinburgh from
my desk and copious amounts of home-baking at tea break.

My main task has been to bring all of the LHSA
photographic collection under the same system to ensure maximum access
to over 6000 photographs, documenting many aspects of the development
of medicine and hospitals from the mid-nineteenth century.From the photographs that I have been working
with thus far, I would like to share with you some of my favourites and others
that I have found rather interesting.

This photograph is from c. 1879-1910 and is a
view of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Lauriston Place, from the Meadows,
with sheep grazing in the foreground.Whilst it is a lovely image of the grand hospital, I was rather
surprised to see sheep.As a student I
often enjoyed spending hot and sunny days at the Meadows but I am not sure how
students nowadays would feel sharing it with these woolly beasts.

Moving on, some of the photographs have been
really interesting in their depiction of medical treatments.I have been learning about ‘sunlight
treatment’ from this picture taken c. 1930 - 1950 at Deaconess Hospital. This is
a photo of a child lying on an operating table being exposed to bright light
with two seated children and a nurse standing at the side, all wearing protective
goggles.What would certainly be a
controversial treatment now was in fact a regular treatment for many children
and adults between 1920 and 1950.The
artificial light lamp was invented by Niels Ryberg Finsen and was thought to be of most benefit to
those suffering from tuberculosis of the skin.[1]

This is a photograph from the very early days
of using x-ray to diagnose patients, around 1900.William Law is pictured here wearing
protective clothing and radiography apparatus.Law was one of the first radiographers at the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh, which opened a ‘Medical Electrical Department’ in 1889.The protective clothing is particularly
distinctive and highlights the dangers of this type of work in the early days
of its use.

Finally, the LHSA photographic collection has an
excellent selection of portrait photographs of Edinburgh medical greats working
as physicians, surgeons, nurses and as other medical practitioners.In keeping with the theme of pioneering
radiology in Edinburgh here is a portrait of Robert Knox, d. 1928.Knox was Consultant Radiologist at Chelsea
Hospital for Women, but his work in treating cancer with x-rays played a major
role in setting up the new Radiological Department of the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh in 1926.[2]Whilst he is certainly not the most famous
‘Robert Knox’ associated with medicine in Edinburgh, it has been nice to
highlight the positive advances this Knox brought, in comparison with the
notorious Robert Knox associated with the Burke and Hare murders.

I look forward to the rest of my
time working with the photographs at LHSA and hope to find more unique images
from this exciting collection.

Lothian Health Services Archive holds the historically important local records of NHS hospitals and other health-related material.
We collect, preserve and catalogue these records and promote them to increase understanding of the history of health and for the benefit of all.

Use of images from LHSA collections

We can provide images from items in our collections, subject to various conditions. Images are provided for private study or non-commercial research, and cannot be used for other purposes unless you request and receive written permission from LHSA to do so.

If you wish to use any images that have been featured on this blog, please contact us at lhsa@ed.ac.uk and we will be happy to discuss permissions with you.